Not the Sharpest Tool
by Nameless She
Summary: Reposted from the Fallout Kinkmeme, low intelligence f!courier gets into all sorts of trouble. Crack fic.
1. Chapter 1

a/n: Do not own Fallout or any of the characters from Fallout.

"How are you still alive?" Arcade asked.

He tried to take the NCR ranger combat armor away from Courier Six, but she was too strong and too fast and too stupid to realize she was the reason the Legion was ready to eat them both alive. Who walks up to a Legion camp in full NCR gear expecting to just talk?

Arcade didn't have to check his pulse to know he was one beat short of a major coronary episode.

"What's your damage?" Courier Six asked, clutching the armor to her chest like it was the last fancy lad snack cake in all the Mojave.

"You can't wear that to talk to Caesar!"

"Watch me. I like it. Makes me look tough."

"If you wear that, every soldier in the Fort is going to think you're a Ranger. They will crucify you before you take two steps past the front gate."

Her face scrunched up like it always did when she was about to do something stupid and her eyes glazed over. God help him, but he knew the minute she barreled up to him in the Old Mormon Fort that she was going to get him killed. Watching her trade all her Rad-away to Julie while she was practically glowing with radiation poisoning should have been the first clue, but Arcade had always had a bit of a soft spot when it came to the deeply stupid.

"You worry too much," she said, gesturing to the Mark of Caesar she wore on a chain around her neck,"I have this thingy Vulpes gave me. Caesar invited me. You know this shiny thingy."

"The Mark of Caesar gets you an audience with Caesar. It won't protect you if you march in to Cottonwood dressed like Colonel Hsu's little darling," Arcade said, pinching the bridge of his nose to stave off the impending migraine, "You know what? Fine. Wear the damn combat armor, but do me a favor. If you're going to storm the Fort, take Boone instead. I'm allergic to getting needlessly slaughtered."

But something in Little Miss "I'm an idiot, please shoot me again" Six's head seemed to click. She gave Arcade that all too familiar slow smile, the same one that turned Benny's knees to jelly right before she snapped his neck.

"I'm an idiot," she said, "What would I do without you? Of course I can't wear NCR combat armor when I meet with Caesar! What was I thinking?"

The breath he'd been holding went out in a sweet rush. Maybe there was hope for her yet. She folded up the armor and stuffed it back her pack.

"Glad to hear it," he said, "We are just going there to talk, aren't we? You're not swearing your allegiance to Caesar or anything like that."

"Naw. Don't worry about it," she said, "I can't understand half the shit those motherfuckers are talking about. Mr. House wants me to do something with the chip. I'm not really sure what he was droning on about, but I figure it can't be too complicated. Probably just left a light on or something. I'll figure it out when we get there. Before we go, could you do me a little favor?"

"Sure. What is it?"

"Since you talked me out of wearing that godawful combat armor, I need to pick something new to wear, something sharp, something that makes Caesar sit back and take notice, something that says "Don't worry, I'm just here on an errand. Pay no attention to me. I'm not your enemy." What do you think?"

When she held up the battered chest plate of her NCR salvaged power armor and the sleeve of her NCR Ranger patrol armor, Arcade knew it was hopeless.

"I think you hate me and you're trying to get me killed," he said.

She laughed. There was just no reasoning with her. God help them both.

"Patrol armor it is!" she said.


	2. Chapter 2

"I don't know what you're so mad about," Courier Six said, "It's not like I knew shit was going to go down like that. I'm not psychic."

Arcade jammed the last stimpak into his left thigh as Courier Six finished off the radaway.

Not only had Caesar not appreciated Courier Six parading through the Fort in full NCR regalia, but that light switch Mr. House supposedly sent her to turn off turned out to be one hell of a pissed off light switch. Despite having the authorization to upgrade Mr. House's securitrons, his protectrons and security turrets hadn't looked too kindly on the invasion.

In the last two hours, Arcade had been punched, stabbed, nearly vaporized, and irradiated until he was pretty sure he glowed in the dark. He was pretty sure one of those blasts had been meant for the courier's eye sockets when she sashayed up to it with that stupid grin plastered to her stupid face. He still didn't know what she'd been thinking. The damn robot was shooting at them before she tried to strike up a conversation.

He took another breath and tried to clear some of the red haze from his vision. They were both alive despite the courier's best efforts and he was exhausted. Novac was still too far away and the miles between them and it was infested with angry ghouls and hungry radscorpions.

"Let's never speak of this day again," he said.

"Right. But how cool was it to vaporize Caesar's face like that? Bet you'll get a bitchin reward. What do you think? Maybe the President will want to meet you. You could end up on the frakking five dollar bill."

"Great. Just what I need. My face on NCR money. Wouldn't dear old dad be proud?"

"I know, right! You'll be fucking famous."

She spit on the Mark of Caesar before polishing it against her sleeve. The dried blood on the surface was mostly hers. For someone who couldn't box their way out of a paper bag, she'd seemed to think it was an appropriate response when confronted with Caesar's Praetorian guards. He could almost pretend she'd forgotten about the hunting rifle strapped to her back or the 9mm at her side...even though she was a crack shot. He'd seen her snipe Raiders from obscene distances on many occasions.

"Do me a favor," Arcade said, "A real one this time."

"Sure, bro. Anything."

"Just don't tell anyone I'm the one who killed Caesar. I'd like it to be a secret."

Her face scrunched up with bewilderment.

"You don't want anyone to know?"

"You can have all the credit," he said.

"But you-"

"No, I insist," he said, "Technically, none of this would have happened if you hadn't dragged me along. It was your...mission. You deserve the credit."

"If it'll make you happy, but you're missing out. You could be besties with the President. I'm just saying."

"Somehow I'll persevere—"

Before he could finish the thought, a low growl cut him off. In the distance, at the top of the hill, he saw the figure of a man turn toward them. Ghoulish hands flexed like claws as he threw his head back and snarled, the greenish tinge to his skin all too apparent in the fading sunlight.

"Check out that dude!" Courier Six said, delight flooding her face as she raised a hand to wave, "Over here, buddy! That guy's going to shit bricks when I tell him what you did to Caesar's face."


	3. Chapter 3

Arcade was ready to collapse but one thing and one thing alone kept him going.

"Will you just stop for a second and look at my bitchin new hat?"

He limped faster. Things had gone too far, and it was clear the courier's stupid had gotten out of control. Her "hat" used to be alive. In fact, it still had both eyeballs and a good portion of its jaw intact. Perched on top of her head, it looked almost like it was slowly eating her.

He paused, mid-limp. Maybe it wasn't so bad after all. He could pretend at least. He could dream.

"It's lovely."

"You're not even looking at it."

"I don't have to. The image is forever burned into my brain," he muttered.

"See! That's what I'm talking about. Anyone who sees it is going to remember it. Bet I could market it to the Brotherhood as a replacement for those hot as fuck deathtraps they call helmets. What do you think?"

His migraine intensified ten fold. Though he supposed it was nothing compared to the headache the poor feral ghoul would have had if it had survived the severing of its spinal chord.

"Knock yourself out."

She frowned. Once again he could almost see the little wheels in her head screeching to a dramatic stop and bursting into tiny flames.

"Not literally," he said, "Though it would give us a break from running for our lives for about two seconds. Just be sure you don't fall on a cazador nest. I'm fresh out of antivenom."

"You're mad at me, aren't you?"

"To paraphrase the hell that has become my life, yes," he said.

The hurt look that flashed across her face sent a chill through him. Her eyes widened, glistened with a thin sheen of tears, and her teeth worried her lower lip. Great. Just great. He'd seen that look when she tried, and failed, to proposition Vulpes Inculta on the Strip. She'd offered him a shot of whiskey, a hit of Jet, and some curious sexual innuendo Arcade had only heard spoken of in rumors and legends. Vulpes' resounding no had resulted in a week of petulant sulking.

Sure enough, Courier Six burst into tears. The dead ghoul head flipped off her head to spatter on the pavement.

It wasn't her fault she was dumb. Damn it, Arcade, he kicked himself, why couldn't you just keep it bottled up with the rest of the irritating shit she comes up with-

"Don't do that," he said, "I'm not mad."

"I just wanted a new hat," she sobbed into her gore spattered palms.

"Please, just don't. It's fine. Everything's fine. I'm fine."

"You're really not mad?"

She sniffled. He wondered if she was really sad or if she was using that thing she reserved on guys who weren't giving her what she wanted. She may have lacked a reasonable amount of I.Q. Points but she could talk a cactus out of its needles any day of the week.

"I'm not mad."

Her lip twitched.

"You like my hat?"

"Yes, I like your hat. It's very...you."

The grin that lit up her face almost made it worth it. Her tears forgotten, she scooped up her "hat" and before he could stop her, she had deposited the wretched thing on his own blonde scalp. As the blood dripped onto his glasses, down his nose, and onto his shoes, he could only stare at the courier and secretly plot her demise.


	4. Chapter 4

"What the hell happened to you?"

Arcade ignored Cass and limped to the bathroom. He still hadn't figured out why, but the courier liked to keep her stimpaks in the bathtub, the Med-X in the toilet's water tank, and the RadAway-well, who was he kidding? Courier Six liked to donate all her RadAway to Julie Farkas. He suspected she thought radiation poisoning would turn her into some kind of radioactive bug person.

That or she just wanted to glow in the dark.

He took five stimpaks out of the tub and jabbed everything that hurt. Now that he was safely back in Lucky 38 with access to food and water and a bed that didn't smell like rotting armpit, some of his earlier rage was dissipating. Arcade wasn't a snob. After a good night's sleep he'd be back to mildly enjoying the courier's company. And if that wasn't the case, he could head back to the Followers to work on one of his pet projects.

The hair on the back of his neck pricked up suddenly. It was so quiet he could hear the blood pulsing in his veins. When he turned back toward the door, he was met with a mixture of bug eyed stares and admiration.

"Well fuck, Gannon," Veronica said, "I didn't know you had it in you."

"No kidding," Cass said, "That kind of stunt takes brass balls, man, big brass balls."

His stomach dropped. She knew. Somehow, they all knew. The courier grinned like the idiot she was, dead ghoul still firmly planted on her big, empty head. He should have known asking her not to tell anyone he'd been the one to deliver Caesar's deathblow was asking too much. She'd probably forgotten the moment something shiny caught her eye.

"You didn't," he said.

The urge to smack himself in the forehead was almost as strong as the urge to keep smacking until he woke up from this nightmare.

"I didn't!" she said, "Wait, didn't do what? Is this like Charades? Dibs on Arcade. We played the whole way back from Novac. He didn't say a word for like twelve hours. Except he called it the quiet game, and he totally won."

"I like Charades!" Lily chimed in, "But if you're going to play with grandma, Jimmy, you'll have to be careful not to move too fast. Leo doesn't like games."

"Focus, Six, focus," Veronica said. "This isn't Charades. You were telling us how Arcade vaporized Caesar's face."

The courier's eyes lit up.

"He swooped in like one of those guys," she said, "And he was all, "Don't kill us," and shit. And when Caesar came at us, he whipped out one of those laser thingies and POW! Brain soup."

"That doesn't even make sense," Veronica said, "He should have been turned to ash not soup."

"Dude, you had to be there," the courier said, "It was like gravity and shit."

"I wish I could have been there," Boone said.

"Yeah well, feel free to tell everyone you were," Arcade said, "Just leave me out of it. If anyone asks, I was somewhere else reading. Just make something up."

Cass, always somewhat sympathetic, patted him on the back, but Boone stared at him in a way the was not wholly comfortable with. As much as Arcade could appreciate a big manly man's attention, this one scared the living fuck out of him on a regular basis. He squeezed past the man and away from the rest of the companions to lock himself in the kitchen.

There had to be something he could do, for his sanity at the very least, to stop the courier before she got them all killed. Some kind of vitamin supplement he cold slip into her Nuka Cola every morning or an implant he could shove into her ear when she wasn't looking-she'd probably think it was some kind of brain ear ring and go with it.

Two hours and a bottle of scotch later, he still didn't have the answers.


	5. Chapter 5

Two hangovers and 400 caps later, Arcade found the answer to the courier conundrum. Dr. Usanagi was a miracle worker, a god among men, and he was a fool for not remembering her paper on the Logic Co-Processor. It wouldn't make the courier a genius but it might augment her brain just enough to keep her from wearing dead people as hats.

When he broached the subject of getting her the Logic Co-Processor, she threw her arms around his neck and squeezed until he saw stars.

"Why didn't you say so sooner?" she asked, her voice an ungodly pitch, "I had your bread buttered on the other side!"

"I'm sorry? What?"

She pushed him back, her hands gripping his shoulders as she gave him an unsettling wink.

"Don't worry about it, you sly devil you," she said, "We're going to have the bitchinest time. Leave it to me. I will be your guide in Courierland."

He felt his stomach drop. Not again, he prayed, please not again.

"You do know what an implant is, don't you?" he asked," And brain surgery. You do you know that brain surgery is not-I don't even know what Courierland is supposed to mean but it's horrifying."

Another wink and a nudge. This wasn't going as well as he'd thought. Worse, her expression was giving him the willies. Why was she staring at him with that shit eating grin?

"Course I know what surgery is! You crack me up, cutie pie," she said, "But we're going to have to keep this a secret from Veronica. I don't think she'll take it too well."

"Veronica? Why would she care that you're getting a brain implant?"

The courier looked at him like he'd just sprouted another head.

"She's Brotherhood. You're Enclave. You know what I'm talking about."

"My father was Enclave, and don't broadcast it! Do you want to get me killed?" he hissed, "Don't answer that. You're not even making sense at this point."

She pouted.

"Fine. Fine. Keep your secrets. You don't have to get all huffy," she said, "But seriously, bro, don't tell Veronica."

"Fine, we won't tell Veronica."

"Because she would be devastated. She's had her eye on you for like ever."

"Veronica's gay."

"And so are you! See what I mean? If she finds out you're taking me out on a date, it'll hurt her feelings."

Arcade fought the urge to pound his forehead against the nearest hard surface. Instead, he pinched the bridge of his nose and counted to ten.

"First, this is NOT a date. We're getting you a brain implant so you can stop dragging me into mortal danger. Second, Veronica is gay. She likes other women. I'm gay. I like other men. Do you see where you stopped making sense?"

"But that's the beauty of it. You're both gay so duh-perfect match."

"No. I'm a man. Veronica is a woman. Veronica likes to sleep with other women. I really can't explain it any more simply than that."

"I know, that's why I was so surprised. Gay people only date other gay people. The whole Brotherhood/Enclave thing is the bonus."

"Wait, what? Why?"

"You know what I mean," she said.

"No, I really don't."

And he didn't want to know. He wanted to throw up his hands and head back to the Fort and Julie and his old world books and his wonderful, safe research.

"I was just as confused until Cass explained how the Brotherhood wanted to take care of the Enclave. They'd go at it over and over again until the Enclave just couldn't take it anymore. Like so many of them just dropped dead after the Brotherhood came at them. And then the NCR came at the Brotherhood. Everyone was fucking everyone. I never thought history could be so sexy."

"That's not even-just please stop misinterpreting history for me. Remember the quiet game. Let's play that until we get to the clinic. Remember you're getting a brain implant. This is not a date."

Again that unsettling smile, wink, and nudge combination.

"Right, bro," she said, "We're just getting me a "brain implant". Your round trip ticket to Courierland will be our little secret."

She planted a sloppy kiss on the tip of his nose before he could duck and dodge. Arcade didn't believe in a god, but at this point, he was willing to believe something was out there screwing with him.

There was just no other explanation.


End file.
